ADMINISTRATIVE THEORY AND PRACTICEduring the second civil war when 'Umar ibn 'Ubaydullah, who was
governor of Basra for Ibn az-Zubayr in 683 and of Fars in 687,
replaced the bismillah on the margin with the phrase "Praise be to
God!" (Ar. li-llah al-~amd) on some of his coins.^61 According to Bal-
adhurl, Mu~'ab ibn az-Zubayr, who ruled Basra and the East for his
brother, the rival Commander of the Faithful, struck dirhams with the
words Allah and "blessing" (Ar. baraka) at his order in 689 on the
Sasanian mint. The coins of both Mu~'ab and his brother did have
the bismillah on the margin as usual. One of Mu~'ab's coins has a
Kufic legend in the margin reading "Mu~'ab, God is his sufficiency"
(Ar. ~asbuhu-llah). 62
These experiments continued after the Marwani restoration in Iraq.
The dates for A.H. 72-75IA.D. 691-94 began to be written in Kufic
instead of Pahlavi characters on coins of the anonymous Khusraw
type.^63 The coins of Khalid ibn 'Abdullah ibn Asid, who was governor
of Basra and its dependencies for 'Abd al-Malik from 691 until 693,
bore the usual bismillah on the margin along with the legend "Mu-
l)ammad (is) the messenger of God."64 According to Baladhuri, when
al-I;Iajjaj became governor of Iraq in 694, he inquired about the Persian
coinage, made use of the Sasanian mint, collected the minters there
and sealed their hands, and had his first dirhams struck that year from
bullion and from the good silver extracted from the zuyu( and coun-
terfeit coins that he called in. He had the marginal legend "bismillah
al-I;Iajjaj" put on these coins, and in the following year he ordered
similar coins struck everywhere in the territories under his authority
with the legend "God is one, God is eternal" (Ar. Allah a~ad Allah
aNamad). The religious leaders are said to have objected to this and
nicknamed the new coins "the detested."65 Extant examples of the
Arab-Sasanian coins of al-I;Iajjaj in the style of Khusraw Parviz actually
do have his name and the bismillah on the margin, followed by the
"testimony" (Ar. shahada) that there is only one God and Mul)ammad
is His messenger, or by the legend "al-I;Iajjaj ibn Yiisuf amrr." His
are the last of the Arab-Sasanian coins from Iraq and were minted as
late as 702 (see fig. 2b).66
9.61 Tabari, Ta'rtkh, 11,463-64,580,582.
62 Baladhuri, FutiiIJ, p. 468; Walker, Arab-Sassanian Coins, p. 102.
63 G. Miles, "The ~conography of Umayyad Coinage," Ars Orientalis 3 (1959), 208-64 Tabari, Ta'rtkh, 11, 818, 834, 835; Walker, Arab-Sassanian coins, p. 109.
65 Baladhuri, FutiiIJ, pp. 468-69.
66 Walker, Arab-Sassanian Coins, pp. xxv, 120.